Burj Dubai

And more…

One report says that an adviser presented Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai, with a scheme to build one of the world’s biggest towers. Sheikh Mohammed wanted to know what else was being planned around the world. The adviser returned with a list of the tallest buildings, with Taiwan’s Taipei 101 reaching higher than the proposed Dubai tower. “Why is it taller – are people there smarter than you?” Sheikh Mohammed reportedly asked Alabbar.

“That’s why I made sure our project was the tallest by far,” said Alabbar.

“Whatever I presented to the Sheikh, he said to make it bigger,” Farhan Faraidooni, a Dubai architect told another magazine.

Alabbar was reportedly very particular about the project. He even wanted the paving stones laid around the Burj Dubai to be of better quality than at the Champs-Elysées in Paris, says Arabian Business. And so, he made the contractors lay the very same stones around his house in Dubai. “I want to see every one of these stones, walk on them, feels every inch of them. What I do has to be better than what they have in Paris.”